It’s a very special day for me.
Today’s my first new novel release since I left Dreamspinner, and since before the pandemic hit.
I submitted Dropnauts to Pitchwars in 2019, and when it didn’t snag me a mentor, I put it out on the agent circuit for about a year. When it finally came back, limping and exhausted, to my doorstep, I picked it up and held it close. Both of us were beaten up by the experience.
I sucked it up, and dove back into it, determined to make it shine.In the process, I rediscovered why I loved this story and these characters.
Books you write become a part of you, a bit of your life’s fabric.
Dropnauts started out as an idea at a Dreamspinner conference, in conversation with the marketing person there. She urged me to go big, to come up with a singular idea that would be different from anything else out there.
I had just finished the Ariadne Cycle and Oberon Cycle trilogies, and was casting about for something to write next. There’s a line in The Rising Tide about Forever receiving a signal from Earth. And in the Oberon Cycle, the earth is still very much in existence, despite my having destroyed it more than a thousand years before, in The Stark Divide.
So I decided to figure out a way to have my cake and eat it too (yes, I am a bit cake-obsessed today) – to both destroy the Earth in one series and have it be a living, vibrant thing in the other.
I asked myself – what happened after Ariadne/Forever left the Earth, along with her sister generation ships? Was there someone left behind?
And so Dropnauts was born. It’s a diverse, hopeful tale of four dropnauts (and a few others) who plan to drop down to Earth from the Moon to reclaim the earth for humankind.
And because I needed it to be, it’s a story of hope against all odds, and a celebration of the human spirit, at a time when it seems almost unfashionable to be hopeful.
So I’m celebrating – mostly by working my ass off to get this thing launched – but also by taking a moment to stop and remember how far I’ve come, and what a thrill it is to finally be here.
So raise a glass with me, take a sip of cider or champagne, and cheer me on!
Now I’ve really gotta run. I have a new release to promote! Wish me luck.
To my writer friends – how do you celebrate your book birthdays?